f Leyden in Muenster
may be presented as an example alike of the mad extremes to which
unquestioned power is apt to lead, and the vast capabilities of faith
and trust which exist in uneducated man.

_THE FORTUNES OF WALLENSTEIN._

[Illustration: WALLENSTEIN.]

Wallenstein was in power, Wallenstein the mysterious, the ambitious, the
victorious; soldier of fortune and arbiter of empires; reader of the
stars and ally of the powers of darkness; poor by birth and rich by
marriage and imperial favor; an extraordinary man, surrounded by mystery
and silence, victorious through ability and audacity, rising from
obscurity to be master of the emperor, and falling at length by the hand
of assassination. In person he was tall and thin, in countenance sallow
and lowering, his eyes small and piercing, his forehead high and
commanding, his hair short and bristling, his expression dark and
sinister. Fortune was his deity, ambition ruled him with the sway of a
tyrant; he was born with the conquering instinct, and in the end handed
over all Germany, bound and captive, to his imperial master, and retired
to brood new conquests.

Albert von Wallenstein was Bohemian by birth, Prague being his native
city. His parents were Lutherans, but they died, and he was educated as
a Catholic. He travelled with an astrologer, and was taught cabalistic
lore and the secrets of the stars, which he ever after believed to
control his destiny. His fortune began in his marriage to an aged but
very wealthy widow, who almost put an end to his career by
administering to him a love-potion. He had already served in the army,
fought against the Turks in Hungary, and with his wife's money raised a
regiment for the wars in Bohemia. A second marriage with a rich countess
added to his wealth; he purchased, at a fifth of their value, about
sixty estates of the exiled Bohemian nobility, and paid for them in
debased coin; the emperor, in recognition of his services, made him Duke
of Friedland, in which alone there were nine towns and fifty-seven
castles and villages; his wealth, through these marriages, purchases,
and gifts, steadily increased till he became enormously rich, and the
wealthiest man in Germany, next to the emperor.

This extraordinary man was born in an extraordinary time, a period
admirably calculated for the exercise of his talents, and sadly suited
to the suffering of mankind in consequence. It was the period of the
frightful conflict known as